Alicia Myles 2 - Crusader's Gold Read online

  Crusader’s Gold

  (Alicia Myles #2)

  By

  David Leadbeater

  Copyright 2015 by David Leadbeater

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher/author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase any additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Thriller, adventure, action, mystery, suspense, archaeological, military, historical

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  The Matt Drake Series

  The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

  The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)

  The Gates of hell (Matt Drake 3)

  The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)

  Brothers in Arms (Matt Drake #5)

  The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake #6)

  Blood Vengeance (Matt Drake #7)

  Last Man Standing (Matt Drake #8)

  The Plagues of Pandora (Matt Drake #9)

  The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake #10)

  The Alicia Myles Series

  Aztec Gold (Alicia Myles #1)

  The Disavowed Series:

  The Razor’s Edge (Disavowed #1)

  In Harm’s Way (Disavowed #2)

  Threat Level: Red (Disavowed #3)

  The Chosen Few Series

  Chosen (The Chosen Trilogy #1)

  Guardians (The Chosen Tribology #2)

  Short Stories

  Walking with Ghosts (A short story)

  A Whispering of Ghosts (A short story)

  Connect with the author on Twitter: @dleadbeater2011

  Visit the author’s website: www.davidleadbeater.com

  All helpful, genuine comments are welcome. I would love to hear from you.

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  For Chris.

  I hope you’re happy, mate. Wherever you are.

  CONTENTS

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY EIGHT

  TWENTY NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY ONE

  THIRTY TWO

  THIRTY THREE

  THIRTY FOUR

  THIRTY FIVE

  THIRTY SIX

  THIRTY SEVEN

  THIRTY EIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  Constantinople—April 12, 1204

  The young Antonio Rambaldo paused and rested his scarred hands against the rough, damp city wall. Did she still breathe? Was she panicked? Was her great heart quailing at the thought of what was soon to come? By the mood in the camp today, she should.

  The weather conditions had finally favored them. Venetian ships were coming close to the walls. Crusaders were already entering the city. It was over six months since they had arrived at this place and the Byzantine Empire was about to feel the full wrath of the Christians. Rambaldo hefted his sword and looked about. Grim-faced men stood everywhere—faces dirty, pockmarked, resolute. Their leader, the half-crazy, blind and heavily-aged Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, led them into this greatest battle of battles.

  The wall was breached, the crusaders crawling through holes they could barely fit into. Bloody fighting continued along the walls above. Ragged bodies fell all around. The Varangians would not give up easily. Rambaldo took his turn, angling his body into the rough hole and bending almost double. The sound of battle faded, replaced by the harsh grunting of weary but determined men. Their goal was now but a stone’s throw away.

  Swords and helmets grated harshly against the walls. A circle of light, an exit, appeared ahead, filled by blood-covered men readying weapons. Crusaders fell out of the end of the hole, body after body, man after man, until their swelling numbers began to make a difference.

  Rambaldo climbed over the still-warm, still-screaming bodies of his Venetian comrades, instantly faced by an axe-wielder, an Anglo-Saxon by the look of him. Rambaldo took the axe blow on his sword, deflected it and sliced at the snarling face. Blood flew. The crusader was able to get his first real look at the city of Constantinople, the city that stood in their way on their march to the Holy Land.

  Constantinople had become a genuine museum of ancient art and history; a lavish home of opulent wealth, a Byzantine playground. The Latins were shocked at what they saw and would find, but not as shocked as they were becoming by their fellow French and similar Catholic crusaders who slew indiscriminately, pausing only to drink wine, rape and murder priests.

  Rambaldo forged his way further into the city, fighting only when he was forced to, trying to follow the path shaped by his blind Doge, Dandolo, and to stick with fellow Venetians who wanted none of this terrible pillaging.

  Toward the great church they strove. The Venetians were themselves semi-Byzantines and wanted to save the greatest art from the rampagers. And other crusaders would not dare challenge Dandolo, a man as shrewd as he was both brave and pious, he had become a leader in his mid-seventies, performing tremendous mental and physical acts and, since the Venetians were funding this, the Fourth Crusade, was well known to be its most influential figure.

  Rambaldo reached the great Hagia Sophia some time after the first groups, caught up in battle along the way. The defenders grouped together and launched attack after attack on the invaders even as their walls were breached and began to fall, even as the Blachernae section of the city was captured and used as a base to attack its remainder, even as a great fire began to rage among thousands of homes.

  The skies groaned, burning bright, stormy with smoke as the great library was destroyed; other churches and monasteries were razed as the defilers stole all they could lay their hands upon, eyes and brains blinded by the promised rewards of thousands of silver marks.

  Rambaldo finally stood in the shadow of the great church. The Hagia Sophia was like nothing he had ever seen before, dwarfing even the image he had kept in his imagination, and over seven hundred years old.

  Gnarled fingers tightly gripped the hilt of his sword. The disgrace of it all was—the crusaders had originally been granted safe passage through Constantinople on their way to Jerusalem, a deal changed by the death of its emperor. It was only after this that Dandolo and his generals decided to sack the city itself, in an attempt to set up a new Latin Empire.

  Rambaldo approached the steps of Hagia Sophia, surrounded b
y his fellows, walking through small fires that burned around the concrete, some the remains of art and literature and expensive cloths, others the remains of people.

  Rambaldo eyed the destruction, the blatant and often gleeful carnage, with a world-weary eye. Many times during his half-century life he had been called upon to be a soldier, each time inuring him to the excesses of the next. Each return made it harder to reconnect to his wife, his growing children. War and battle changed a man, but twenty five years of it turned him into an entirely different creature. Rambaldo had tried desperately to hold on to his humanity but, until now, had always thought he’d failed.

  And yet, the actions of the other crusaders showed that it was they who were no longer human, not the Venetians.

  Ahead, Dandolo halted, staring across the way toward the great, awe-inspiring Hippodrome, a large chariot racing track looked over by the four great gilt horses created by the world’s greatest known sculptor, Lysippos, sometime in the fourth century BCE. Rambaldo noted that his commander appeared rapt, even overwhelmed, and quickly sent a contingent of men in that direction. Rambaldo also reminded himself that his commander was blind. Dandolo had to have known what he wanted—the stare was purely for show.

  They crossed the square and made to enter the great religious center of Hagia Sophia; many of the Venetian crusaders almost overawed to be in her shadow, others struggling to stay close to their great commander, Dandolo. It was then that a wave of enemy combatants swept in from the tree line to the right. Rambaldo saw the bloody battle about to erupt and once more hardened his heart, distanced his emotions and narrowed his vision.

  Hagia Sophia itself watched over it all like an indifferent deity. Indeed, it had seen it all before. Twice destroyed and rebuilt, it had once been said that ‘God allowed the mob to commit this sacrilege, knowing how great the beauty of this church would be when restored.’ Today however, it was a complex affair and though some crusaders were indeed ransacking and defiling the great church, others were defending its sanctity and still others were stood wondering why those who rampaged seemed to have forgotten that Constantinople was only the gateway to Jerusalem, not the task that Pope Innocent III had first set them upon. Worse, they were plundering the very living treasures of the church. The catastrophic effects would ricochet down throughout history.

  Rambaldo stood his ground, taking blows, resigned by now that every battle might be his last. Yes, he wanted to survive this day, yes he wanted to see Jerusalem, and yes he even wanted to return to his homeland where his wife at least awaited him, but a man so jaded as he would not be unwelcoming to the sharp stab of quick release. Some men dropped around him, but the crusaders were a battle-hardened lot and this batch of defenders were not. Soon, Rambaldo turned his attention back once again to the church and entered only to find Dandolo on his knees. At first fearful, but then acutely aware, he stared around at the desecrations that had already been wrought by the defilers.

  Silver iconostasis—icons holding the holy books of Hagia Sophia—had been overturned and smashed to pieces. Seated upon the patriarchal throne was a naked whore, singing coarse songs. Crusaders stood around in their wicked bawdiness, drinking wine from the church’s holy cups. Bodies littered the floor and a priest had been draped upon a hanging tapestry, his flesh defiled. They were destroying the holy altar, herding horses and mules into the church to better carry off its holiest of treasures.

  And here we stand, Rambaldo thought. Brave Christians all. Liberating this Christian city from its Christian rulers in the name of Christianity. Religion at its most crazy.

  In future years he hoped the world might get better.

  The noise inside Hagia Sophia was raucous, riotous. Dandolo appeared to wilt, possibly realizing immediately that even he could do naught to dissuade the crusaders from their damaging path. In another moment the Doge seemed to come to a decision, waving his men away from the hall and toward sparser areas.

  “If we cannot save all her history,” he said aloud, “along with the remainder of this great city’s, then we can preserve only its finest.”

  Rambaldo thought of the Hippodrome and its famous horses and wondered what Dandolo had in mind for them. How had the Doge come by such secret knowledge? Of course the answer stared him immediately in the face—many years earlier, before becoming the 42nd Doge of Venice, Dandolo had been appointed ambassador to Constantinople, charged with the thankless task of settling Venice’s disputes through diplomatic settlements. His many visits would have led to familiarity, acquaintance and the inevitable learning of secrets. Back then, of course, his sight had not been afflicted.

  And the siege and final sacking of Constantinople was granted through his direction.

  Rambaldo followed his leader deep into the great church, at one point twisting around to the exterior and re-entering through a smaller barred gate until all was in silence and a deep, fetid air permeated the small space in which they were gathered. Before them lay the entrance to a catacomb and the rumbling rush of deep water.

  Were there secret passages underneath Hagia Sophia?

  Dandolo, though blind, appeared to know exactly where he was going.

  Rambaldo followed with thirty other knights, seeking the treasure of treasures.

  ONE

  Michael Crouch heard his cellphone ringing and sent his hand fumbling through his pockets to try and find it.

  Caitlyn Nash held it out at arm’s length, not looking at Crouch but carrying on her conversation with Zack Healey.

  Crouch shook his head a little. “Thanks.”

  He checked the screen. The call was from Rolland Sadler, his new team’s wealthy benefactor—the man who funded their treasure hunting expeditions.

  “Hello, Rolland.”

  “Michael. I hear you’re over in America helping Greg Coker out of a sticky situation. Isn’t he the man who tried to have you all killed recently?”

  Crouch laughed quietly. “You’re certainly well informed, Rolland. I wasn’t aware anyone other than Alicia knew what we were up to.”

  “Ah, the incomparable Miss Myles. I hear she helped save Mai Kitano recently. Has she returned yet?”

  Crouch hesitated. “Not yet.”

  “I know of her loss during that mission. Perhaps she decided to stay for the funeral.”

  Crouch stared into the middle-distance. “Perhaps, but unlikely. Alicia’s instinct would be to move on as fast as she possibly could. I’ve been waiting for a good enough excuse to contact her.”

  “Then I’m even happier I called. Have you finished your . . . um . . . business with Coker?”

  “Greg’s fine. The hired goons who were watching and intimidating his family refused to give up even after we took care of their boss over in South Africa. The problem has now been resolved.”

  “Excellent. Then I believe I may have a new quest for you, Michael.”

  Crouch immediately felt a thrill course through his veins. All his life he had been awaiting this new adventure. Though an extremely capable soldier and even more highly regarded leader Crouch’s real love had always been founded in archaeological mysteries. The life of a soldier had been his job, his responsibility, but his real calling lay with the hunting down and discovery of ancient treasure, so when the chance came, as Crouch hit his fifties, he embraced it with his entire being. He set up a trusted crew, a group of fighters and investigators, and listened to what Rolland Sadler had to say. Crouch, a sentimentalist at heart, stored and remembered details of every lost treasure he’d ever investigated—now the old, half-serious potterings were starting to bear wholesome fruit.

  “You have my attention, Rolland.”

  “I thought I might. Let me first paint a picture for you—a crusader army marching to liberate Jerusalem. Invited to take a short cut through Constantinople. Arriving there, they are told they no longer have passage . . .”

  “The Fourth Crusade,” Crouch said, “that led to the sacking of Constantinople and the downfall of the Byzantine Empire.”r />
  “Among many other things. The sack of Constantinople was a turning point in history. One of the first and irrefutable proofs that many who fight in the name of religion are actually full of shit.”

  “Even the Pope condemned it as I remember.” Crouch thought back through a lifetime of studies. “Some of the world’s greatest treasures destroyed or lost forever.”

  “Just so. Well, as you know Constantinople is now called Istanbul. You may have heard that the site where the ancient docks once stood has recently been uncovered over there. A new road was being built, I believe, which unearthed the historical site exactly where archaeologists always said it was . . .” a note of quiet satisfaction crept into Sadler’s voice. “So, no more road and a great dig gets underway.”

  “Really?” Crouch was surprised.

  “No. Of course not. The road, its money men and the government wouldn’t stand for that. Our unique ancient site is due to be filled with concrete and the archaeologists have but a few weeks to find whatever they can.”

  Crouch nodded silently. Realizing now that this call was another turning point he took a seat at the table. His current team, Caitlyn, Healey and Rob Russo had met this morning at a local Denny’s for breakfast. The blueberry pancakes were as good as ever, the hash browns a tasty side and the coffee mellow, hot and plentiful.

  “So what have they found, Rolland?”

  “I can’t say too much at this point, Michael. What I really need is you and your team on a plane, headed for Istanbul. We don’t have much time. Can you do that?”

  Crouch wondered at Sadler’s reticence. Was the find that valuable? And if so, why did they need a team that hunted for lost treasures? Clearly, there was an awful lot being left unsaid. “Of course. We can be on a plane in a matter of hours. I’ll have to check Alicia’s status first—”